


The Secrets We Keep, You and Me

by Melawen_C



Category: X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Emotional Roller Coaster, M/M, One Shot, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-18
Updated: 2013-02-18
Packaged: 2017-11-29 16:32:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/689086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melawen_C/pseuds/Melawen_C
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set some time after the end of First Class, before DOFP. Erik has to visit Charles... and seeing him is always a little more emotional than he'd like it to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Secrets We Keep, You and Me

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this nearly completed for a long time... finally brought it back out and dusted off the cobwebs. Just a little one-shot of the boys being their angsty, emotional, hopeless selves. *sighs*

As Erik stood on the steps outside the old manor, Mystique stared at him… stared until he finally, reluctantly, met her gaze.

“If there were any other way,” he reiterated firmly, but she cut him off with a glare. She was the only one he’d allow to do such a thing and, in this case, it was only because he knew what she was feeling.

Erik didn’t want to be here anymore than she did, but there were times when Charles and his expertise and resources were needed. Now was one of those times.

Her eyes were dark and serious, but he could see the hesitation underneath. He could see _Raven_ again.

He didn’t like to think on what she might see as she looked at him. He wasn’t that man anymore. He couldn’t let himself be… his helmet might keep his mind protected, but there were other ways to be hurt. Every time he visited this place, he reminded himself of that.

Still, Erik was thankful for the barrier as he looked at Charles for the first time in months. Too many months. He looked different… it wasn’t that he was so much older, but there was a weariness in his eyes that make Erik frown as they shook hands.

“Welcome, my friends,” he said with complete sincerity.

 _So polite, as always,_ Erik thought, scornful, knowing he wouldn’t be heard.

The greetings and introductions (new mutants, so many new mutants) were tedious for Erik. He picked up on the strain in Charles’s voice and it startled him to realize he was still able to notice it so easily.

The mansion looked exactly the same. He didn’t know what he was expecting… perhaps for it to not feel so familiar. He felt stifled inside, felt too tight and too restrained. 

He excused himself as quickly as he could and made an escape.

The fresh air was a minor help, until he heard the steady sound of wheels approaching behind him. He made no acknowledgment, keeping his eyes fixed ahead. He could all but feel the smile on Charles’s face… the one he got when Erik was being particularly stubborn.

“Walk with me?” Charles asked him, gently.

Erik looked at him then, eyebrow raised at his choice of words, but went anyway.

They followed the path along the house, out to the far end of the property. There was a sprawling garden there, situated at the base of an old, stone-hewn staircase. Erik remembered Charles used to walk there, when he tried to escape the bustling noise of the house. Now, he stopped at the edge of the steps and looked out at it with a forlorn expression, as if he’d only just remembered his limitations.

Erik’s chest was tight.

“Here,” he said suddenly, stepping down.

Charles looked at him quizzically.

_Do you trust me?_

The words were on the tip of Erik’s tongue but he held them back.

“Will you let me?” he asked instead, gesturing to Charles’s wheelchair. Charles nodded, slowly, though a frown still creased his forehead.

Erik lifted the chair with barely a flicker of his fingers and guided it easily down the stairs, to the entrance of the garden. He wondered if, in his place, he would be as trusting as Charles appeared to be. Would he allow Charles that level of control? Erik couldn’t even take off his helmet in the other man’s presence yet. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Charles to stay out of his head… but he wasn’t sure what they might find there if he looked.

The silence between them as they explored the garden was not what Erik would describe as companionable, but it wasn’t strained and he considered that a victory in itself. He put his hands in his pockets as he walked, with Charles beside him.

“Erik,” Charles said eventually, with a hint of amusement in his voice, “you’re spoiling me.”

Erik didn’t understand what he meant until he looked over and saw that Charles’s hands rested comfortably in his lap, doing nothing to move the chair, which hovered just above the ground next to Erik. Which meant… He stopped suddenly. He hadn’t even realized he was moving it. Erik shook his head in shock.

“You didn’t know, did you?” Charles asked incredulously. 

“No,” Erik admitted, too confused to be ashamed that he couldn’t control his powers.

“You’re stronger than you were before,” Charles continued cautiously. “What else can you do?”

He tried to school his expression, but Erik could see how the curiosity made him sit up a little straighter, made his eyes a little brighter. Erik chuckled.

“Tell you all my secrets? No, I don’t think so. Wouldn’t want you getting any ideas,” he said, tapping a finger to his temple.

Charles grabbed the spokes of the wheels to stop himself. It was so abrupt that Erik felt the resistance tug against him before he had the chance to release it.

 _“Ideas?”_ Charles repeated in an incredulous voice, edged with bitterness. “What is it that you think I'm doing? You know you could crush me right here in this chair and I’d have no defense.”

He sounded angrier than Erik had ever heard him and Erik’s own emotions flared at the implications. 

“You think I would do that? Is that what I’ve become to you?”

Charles sighed, the exhaustion settling over him again. 

“No, I… of course not,” he said, shaking his head, “but you _could_.”

Erik knelt so they were eye-to-eye.

“I can’t take it off,” he stated unapologetically, gesturing to the helmet. “Not yet.”

“Which one of us don’t you trust?”

That was Charles – perceptive, as always. Erik used to resent having someone who knew all his secrets, knew him inside and out. He thought it made him vulnerable and weak. He was beginning to realize it was more complicated than that. Everything with Charles was always more complicated.

“I’ve told you,” Erik said firmly, “it’s not you.” 

_It was never you. Never how it should’ve been. That was the problem._

“But you are stronger,” Charles pressed. 

Erik nodded. “It’s incredible. I can move things now that would amaze even you.”

He still thought of Charles when he used his powers, still heard the echo of his voice guiding him. That voice used to strengthen him, now he wasn’t so sure. It felt like a betrayal – his mind keeping the other man so close still, when he wasn’t. Not really.

Erik pointed upward without looking. “Do you see that plane?”

Charles lifted his gaze and squinted into the sun. Erik watched the long line of his throat and the way his eyes tracked the movement in the bright light.

“I could drag it out of the sky and land it right here in your backyard,” he whispered, as though he were confessing a secret. “Shall I?”

Charles scowled at him and Erik pressed his lips together tightly to hold back his grin. Underneath that disproval, much as he endeavored to hide it, Erik could see that Charles was intrigued. It was his morals and his sense of responsibility that kept him from giving in – not his lack of interest. Erik could at least appreciate his struggle to do the right thing, even if it drove him crazy.

“It seems different, now. The pull is stronger… it all feels closer.” Erik couldn’t articulate it very well, but he knew Charles had some understanding of it. He’d been in Erik’s mind enough to feel it, in his own way.

He glanced over and, sure enough, Charles nodded. Erik didn’t know if he was agreeing or asking him to continue. Erik’s fingers brushed his arm and he felt Charles shiver, the hair on his arm rising at Erik’s touch. 

“Sometimes, if I'm close enough…”

He could feel the blood rush, faintly yet steadily, under the surface of his skin… and, not so faintly, the quickening of Charles’s pulse with the touch. Erik struggled to withdraw his hand, though he knew it wasn’t metal keeping him there.

“Can you stay out of my head?”

Charles nodded, eyes wide as he watched Erik remove the helmet.

 _You always were such a hopeful fool, Charles,_ he thought fondly.

Charles rolled his eyes. 

_If I have to stay out of yours, then you have to at least try to keep out of mine as well._

Erik couldn't help but grin at that. It felt... good.

Charles tilted his head as he regarded Erik. “You know I don’t want to control you, Erik. I never did.”

An image of flying missiles and burning sand crossed Erik’s mind and he knew Charles saw it too from the way he stiffened in his chair. 

“No,” he disagreed. “I think there was a time when you would’ve liked to. Just one time, perhaps?”

Indignation clouded Charles’s face and Erik knew he’d gone too far. “That wasn’t about controlling you, it was about saving lives.”

 _It was about you_ choosing _them,_ Erik thought angrily, before he could stop himself.

“They were powerless against you!” Charles shot back.

“They shot first,” Erik growled, unrepentant. He knew it was juvenile, but he didn’t care.

Charles held up his hands in surrender, his lips pressed into a thin, angry line. _Have it your way_ , Erik heard loud and clear, _and you’re right about one thing: I am a fool_.

Erik placed the helmet back on his head before he could hear any more. 

He turned away, staring into the distance, replaying the last few moments in his mind, now that he had the privacy to do so. Disappointment, anger, longing, pain, loss… he’d felt all those emotions in the thoughts Charles directed at him… but he hadn’t felt the one thing he’d expected.

He stared at Charles for so long that Charles, of all people, seemed to grow uncomfortable under the scrutiny. He always knew better when it came to Erik.

“Yes?” Charles hedged.

“I was just thinking how easy it would be for us to hate each other.”

Charles’s eyes widened and his lips parted in shock, as if the possibility had never crossed his mind.

Erik shook his head. “If I could do it over…” He trailed off, trying not to imagine how differently things might be for them both right now.

“I fear we’d still end up the same,” Charles said, finally, resigned.

_No. I’d make sure you were safe._

“Yes,” Erik lied, “you’re probably right.”

“See?” Charles said with a false brightness, “At least we can agree on that.”

His smile was sincere, though sad. There was still something in his gaze though, something that held Erik more firmly than anything else ever had.

Erik was hard-pressed to name it, but he thought it might be hope.


End file.
